Skimming through the posts, it looks like it'll be about $31/hr? At that price, OP should be able to get decent offshore talent. With offshore developers there are other problems, but doing some due diligence upfront should help with some of that.

From my experience, a good reference from a previous client is the best predictor of a successful project.

I think 5-7k is a more reasonable assumption for an app like this.
Yes, I'm planning to limit the project to basketball and if that does well I would branch out to other sports.
Originally I planned to try and develop it myself, but unfortunately I don't have the necessary time to learn to develop. Although this is a low budget app I do think it can be done considering the features are fairly limited.

Thanks for the advice. I've actually been told that I should be careful with hybrid apps. I think this is because they tend to have functionality issues and you need a developer that has a solid understanding of how to fix them. Also those issues may extend the development stage. Pretty sure I'm leaning towards native development because of that.

I actually came across this site a few months back and it gave me a bare bones estimate of $18,000. It may be accurate but I think/hope it can be done for less.

Agreed, references and past work in the app store seem to be the most reliable indicators.

Just my 2 cents... Write once, distribute anywhere.

If I'm building a data driven app like the one you described, Ionic would be my choice.

If I'm building a game, Unity or cocos2d would be my choice.

It's all about js though

I honestly have no idea what would be the "specific" issues. Doing native will easily double your expense.

Honestly the only people that would suggest that are total novices.

Since I guess I am one of the ones who suggested it (“it” being the superior and logical recommendation to go native instead of non-native), I guess I’ll take a stab at responding to this...

In general, It’s pretty clear that native development has far superior long-term benefits and feature development options for app owners (not to mention vastly improved UI/UX options) than non-native app development.

Case in point: Facebook and LinkedIn. Out of curiosity, would you consider the founders and developers at these two companies novices in this space? Both multi-billion tech firms originally launched with non-native apps years ago (as a technical choice, not because the alternative technology wasn’t available to them necessarily); but after a lag in adoption and spending MILLIONS on market research/R&D, they realized they couldn’t get the adoption desired because of an inability to do a myriad of things they wanted to do inside the app (including cool graphic products that drive an improved user experience and integration with onboard tools within the device) and thus decided to totally throw away those apps and re-launched mobile natively (and have been ever since.) So, OP could just choose to learn from the bad beats of a few of the best billion dollar players in the tech space right now both in terms of usership and value and and go straight to native by default.

But those are just two big players in the space – maybe they are the outliers. How about this specific scope/app instance? I could think of a few items that would make for a better argument for native development in this instance. For example, we could talk about non-native’s lack of offline functionality ability and difficulty caching content or queuing offline actions for eventual push into the DB (which could be important in cases where basketball courts don’t have any wifi or perhaps the connectivity to cell towers is spotty.) We could also talk about cool graphic interface options or integration with features like the on-board camera or native calendars being easier, but rather than going into all of those, I’ll just start and end with one specific item of note: Is it important to have the app available in the app stores?

As far as I know, being available for download on the Apple and Google stores is still a pretty popular/potentially effective means for apps to get downloads from new users (and for those of you reading this who missed the sarcasm, yes, it is the only way to do this on scale.) You can find article after article showing that both Apple and Google play stores are starting to restrict non-native apps from getting into their stores via their submission policy statements and are getting outright rejected on those specific terms and for issues arising with non-native apps. So even if you are able to sneak one on now and then (or already have one on), it's only a matter of time before the trend concludes with a near total preclusion of non-native apps from having a presence on the two app stores of note (particularly on Apple, which as I understand it is the OPs first choice of platform for launch and target users.)

It is correct that the cost of doing both native platforms would be higher than one non-native app (closer to 2x, maybe a little less.) But, the cost of not being native (potentially an overall inferior user experience, lack of native tool integration options, oh and that whole being available for download on the app stores thing) is exorbitantly higher.

I wouldnt go as far as to say non-native has no benefits at all or zero space to live in the market; but it is a short-lived shelf-life and a very narrow space of instances where it is even viable, let alone preferred, to native.

That is a wonderful wall of text full of logical fallacies and nonsense.

Again, try to name some specifics instead of comparing social networks to a geolocation of basketball courts.

Your whole rant about being on multiple app stores is total fiction btw. You mention "issues" without ever addressing what specific issues exist.

Do you even talk to any of the biz dev people at Apple before making these sort of comments or did you just make this up?

I'll admit, it is a bit tl;dr, but it appears you may not of read the actual previous post (since it directly addresses most of your responses to it.) as for the denial on non-native apps trend, all that requires is a bit of Googling and reading to see several people encountering that (plenty of Quora posts referencing the subject as well.)

And no, I dont talk to the biz dev guys at Apple since well 1) in my years managing app development I've never once encountered anyone in that role , nor know of any such role existing in regards to the app store, and more importantly 2) I'm basing it off of my own observations on the dozens of applications I am involved with launching and supporting on the app stores each year.

Any way, others are obviously entitled to their own opinion, just referencing what I think is advisable based on personal experience.

/rantoff

I didn't address the offline issues since that was so embarrassing for you I just thought it would be better to ignore it. (It seriously is one of the dumbest possible things I have heard someone mention in this thread and makes me think you have no idea what he is trying to make, much less what an MVP for the idea would be.)

Let me let you in on what the function of the App Store is: it is to sell more devices. That is the sole reason for its being. I'm sure you don't actually talk to the people who help shape and direct the promotions for the App Store since you have said a bunch of crazy and nonsensical things. Furthermore, these are the people that App Store review works with. You can actually speak to human beings who will help shape review policy, but this is well understood by anyone in the business.

Anyway, aside from the obviously false comment about it never getting on the stores, and the even dumber comments about offline caching. (How the **** do you use a real time geolocation app without the internet?) You ignore the most obvious problem with apps like this is that all the drivel about updates/future functionality is totally worthless. The odds he ever needs to update for new features is somewhere between .1 and .01% (1/1000 and 1/10000), but lets be incredibly generous and say its 1 out of 100. Under my model, he needs to pay 1.02x, under yours it is 2x. What you are suggesting is a clown car of general novice product development coupled with premature optimization to the nth level.

But hey, I'm sure that offline caching and pushing it to a DB is totally useful in the first iteration of an application that shows nearby basketball courts and who is at them.

PS: lol @ your experience BTW

OP,

How do you plan to figure out who is at each basketball court?

Via the app users I would guess.

OP do this, and then 1.1.1.1.1. would be how much money will the pay for it? And how many times? what IAPs would they like?

Unless this is a project of passion where you expect no ROI, I would not pursue. If your adament on pursuing, go to www.meetup.com and look for app development meetups in your local area, then go to 5-10 and get some different ideas, maybe you'll meet a co-founder who can help you if you can sell to them how your going to profiteer from the product. Avoid oDesk.com at all costs unless you have someone technical who can support you.

If you truely love the idea and are passionate about it, you need to get on a iOS / Android coding forum and start working on it for your local city for proof of concept. You might get a lot of help along the way if your creative with bloggin your progress and invest the time properly.

The app would provide a count based on number of users.
Thanks for the advice, I'm planning to hire a developer. I don't have the time to code it myself but getting to know developers at meetups could potentially work.